Welcome back to the reaction corner. Week 2 has passed Go and collected its $200, but here we are, sorting our colored paper bills, and finding out where our team stands.
My duds this week are LeSean McCoy and Jonnu Smith. McCoy served a nice five points, while Smith laid an egg. Admittedly, Smith, was a Boom/Bust player from the get-go since Delanie Walker went down last weekend, but still having a backup QB means check down to the TE, so you would think. McCoy is having some trouble with the Buffalo offense so unsurprisingly once they are down, McCoy is irrelevant. Shall we begin the rant-nalysis?
Our Top Performers of Week 2 are:
Quarterback
Patrick Mahomes – 42 points
Ben Roethlisberger – 41 points
Blake Bortles -38 points
Kirk Cousins – 37 points
Ryan Fitzpatrick – 36 points
Running Back
Melvin Gordon – 30 points
Todd Gurley – 28 points
Christian McCaffrey – 27 points
Matt Breida – 24 points
Saquon Barkley – 24 points
Wide Receiver
Stefon Diggs – 33 points
Michael Thomas – 32 points
Juju Smith-Schuster – 31 points
Adam Thielen – 31 points
A.J. Green – 29 points
Tight End
Travis Kelce – 29 points
Jesse James – 24 points
Zach Ertz – 20 points
Evan Engram – 19 points
O.J. Howard – 18
Fantasy Football Week 2 Breakdown
If I may, whoever had any Kansas City or Pittsburgh players, bravo on the plays in your matchups. Just on these top performers of the week, 20% came from that game. Mahomes, Roethlisberger, Smith-Shuster, Kelce, and James accounted for 167 points. THAT’S WITH FIVE PLAYERS.
Some key players to focus on in the RB position would have to be Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley. McCaffrey hauled in 14 catches on 15 targets for 102 yards, and Barkley contrasted with 14 catches and 16 targets with 80 yards. The only downside, neither RB actually ran the ball very well, McCaffrey ran for 37 yards and Barkley for 28. If you are in a Standard league such as myself, McCaffrey cannot be depended on. In a PPR league, however, he may end up being a top 3 running back when it’s all said and done.
You may have noticed one Pittsburgh player was not mentioned in the KC Vs. PIT player points spree. And no it’s not Le’Veon Bell, but instead, Antonio Brown. He and the combo of Smith-Shuster are quite the dynamic duo, but this week Brown was fairly quiet. In PPR leagues he averaged 15 points, while Smith-Shuster more than doubled that. More impressively, Smith-Shuster had 19 targets and 13 receptions, against Brown’s 17 targets and 9 receptions. Both receivers had plenty of chances to capitalize, but Smith-Shuster did more with his time on the sloppy KC Defense.
Speaking of capitalizing on chances, Jesse James and Vance McDonald both had 5 targets on the game, but only one of those names have been mentioned before. McDonald had 26 yards, while James finished with 138. Clearly, McDonald was getting the check downs and James had some plays designed for him; either TE is a coin flip when it comes to this offense with so many weapons to choose from.
Finally to get away from the shoot-out, some players that just didn’t match up to very much. Sam Bradford on the Cardinals had a very tough week and got rammed by the Los Angeles Rams. Maybe even more troublesome was that his TE Ricky Seals-Jones helped little to none when getting the ball. His six targets, 10th highest among all TEs, got him only four receptions and only five points. His 17 yards were definitely Bradford’s last resort dump off since he had very little to contribute in the Arizona loss.
To conclude, Demaryius Thomas, once Peyton Manning’s favorite WR in Denver, could not click with Case Keenum last week. Keenum showed some love to his receiver with 11 targets but he only caught the ball 5 times for barely 18 yards. Emmanuel Sanders had a decent game if you play in Standard leagues going for 96 yards which is 9 points, and in PPR he had an average day with about 13 to 14 points. This could mean Sanders and Keenum are gelling, but it could also mean Thomas may becoming less relevant to the Denver offense.